However he didn’t have much to celebrate during the race. He failed to better his season-best finishing position of fifth, meaning he ended the year with no podiums, while team mate Fernando Alonso has scored ten including victory at Silverstone.

The last Ferrari driver to go an entire season without finishing on the podium was Didier Pironi in 1981. Team mate Gilles Villeneuve finished on the podium three times that year, including two wins.

Vettel claims pole record

Sebastian Vettel made a new record for the most pole positions in a single season, setting his 15th of the year on Saturday.

He set pole in 78.95% of races this year which is the fifth-highest strike rate of all time:

Webber also took his 13th fastest lap, putting him level with Jacky Ickx, Alan Jones and Riccardo Patrese – and leaving him four ahead of his team mate. It was Webber’s seventh fastest lap of the year, the most of any driver.

For the third year in a row the pole sitter failed to win the Brazilian Grand Prix. The last four races at Interlagos have all seen a different constructor on pole position: Red Bull, Williams, Brawn and Ferrari. Unusually, McLaren’s last pole position here was Mika Hakkinen’s in 2000.

Jan Charouz made his first appearance in an F1 race weekend when he drove for HRT during practice. He is only the second driver from the Czech Republic to appear in an F1 weekend, the other being Tomas Enge, who started three races for Prost in 2001.

Goodbye to Renault and Virgin

It was the 300th and last race for Renault before the team takes over Lotus’s identity in 2012.

Since they first appeared in F1 in 1977 the team has recorded 35 wins, 51 pole positions and two constructors’ championships. The drivers’ championship has been claimed by a Renault driver on two occasions: Alonso’s back-to-back triumphs in 2005 and 2006.

Virgin also made their last appearance before transforming into Marussia in time for next season. Since entering F1 at the beginning of last year they hold the record for making the most race starts (38) without scoring a point. HRT are behind them on 37, having failed to start this year’s Australian Grand Prix.

That covers off the stats for this weekend’s race but there’s much more to come in the F1 Fanatic 2011 season review, starting here soon.

In the meantime you can review some of the season statistics so far here:

Ferrari and McLaren are the only two teams to have higher wins per starts. It just shows how competitive Red Bull have been, especially given that they didn’t get a win till their 5’s car. In other words out of their 7 cars to date, 4 didn’t win anything. So 42.8% of their cars have had such a high number of wins that they have boosted RBR’s ratio from 0% up to the 3rd highest with less than half their cars!

To put it another way

It has been 53 races since RBR’s first win (China 2009), since then they have won 27, or more than half (50.9%) of the races! And that’s including that Brawn thing!

In the past two season’s (the start of the ‘dominance’ period, even including the stuff ups in 2010), they have won 21 out of 38 races!

I find that to be by far more interesting that Vettel winning or putting the car on pole as it shows just how dominant the car has been.

But then you’d have some confusion over the mess that is Tyrell/BAR/Honda/Brawn/Mercedes. You’d also have Renault who competed in the 70’s/80’s and pulled out in 1985. But at the same time there was Toleman competing, who were taken over by Benetton and then Renault. Oh, but now they’re Lotus, who have also been at the back of the grid and are about to become Caterham.

I respect that this is a good statistic, but you have to feel that when there is was no other car that is capable of challenging for pole for the majority of races this statistic is being given to him.

@koolkieren As I just said, though, that’s not always been the case this year. Look at Suzuka, for example. It’s easy to over-state the advantage Vettel’s had, and overlook the fact that he’s not the only driver with an RB7 at his disposal. Indeed, the other guy used to be considered something of a one-lap specialist.

Webber used to be considered a one lap specialist with Michilin’s with grooves. Lost it a bit Bridgestones, lost it a bit with slicks, lost it massively with Pirelli’s.

His lap on saturday showed he has been learning and improving the tyres, although one has to note who the teammates are. Patrease wasn’t exactly challenging Mansell. Webber hasn’t been. Prost was more of a race over one lap.

I always love these statistics articles. Surely the most points ever were also scored, due to the current points system. The spead in points this year was really pretty little, a big chunk of it was only the first 5 in the Championship.

Back in the days when not all points counted to the championship and points could be dropped (so that a driver wouldn’t be penalised too much because of unreliability) Jim Clark scored all 54 possible championship points in a single season.

Why? They have completed those races, and they were still part of the championship, but the ruled at the time simply ignored the worst results. If you want to compare how these drivers performed over the course of the season, then you have to count all the races.

With regard to McLaren’s last pole position in 2000, it is surprising that if you look at the races since 2007 (my memory of earlier races is too hazy), they have struggled at this track, with the possible exception of 2009.

Looking back at Prost’s stats, he’s ‘only’ got 33 poles out of 199 starts but 13 our of 16 in 1993. 51 wins but at the end of his first career he only had a pole percentage of 10.9 (20/183). I think this shows what a great racer Prost was, and that racecraft is as importantly as raw pace.

Webber’s win ends the 25-race run of races being won by the same four drivers (Vettel, Button, Hamilton, Alonso). This means it fell one short of the record (26 races between Portugal 1987 and US 1989, won by Prost, Senna, Berger and Mansell) and is joint second with Japan 2006-Monaco 2008 (Alonso, Massa, Raikkonen, Hamilton).

The quintet of Webber, Button, Hamilton, Vettel and Alonso have collectively won the last 42 races. The last driver other than these five to win was Barrichello in Italy 2009. There is still some way to go for the record to be broken, as it stands at 53 (Brazil 1986-US 1989, won by Piquet, Senna, Prost, Mansell and Berger).

Similarly, the dominance of Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari in this 42-race period is the third longest by three teams. The record stands at 58 races, set by Benetton, McLaren and Williams between Japan 1990 and Britain 1994. If the status quo continues throughout 2012, both records could be broken.

Wow – that really puts into perspective how far ahead of the other teams the current front-runners are. I really wouldn’t have thought that, by some measures, the RB/McLaren/Ferrari unit we have at the front is amongst the most dominant F1 has ever seen!

It also makes it a bit more understandable that the smaller teams are taking a while to find their feet. In this era of reasonably low car development (frozen engines, strict aero etc.), it’s just that much harder to make it up through the pack.

Webber was first driver since Montoya (2004) to take his only victory in the final race of the season. In total it has been done 15 times now, but many of them happened when there were less races. When the season has had at least 15 Grand Prix (since 1973 with the exception of 1975 and 1980), it was eighth time:

@tobinen I’m not sure of the exact percentage but the Singapore GP in 2008 was F1’s 800th race, and Spa 2010 was Barrichello’s 300th. So he’s at around 325 and F1’s had some 860 races or so, which means he’s started more than a third of all races, yes. 19 out of 62 seasons is already nearly a third, plus there’s more races than there used to be.

Only the second time WEB has finished ahead of SEB, when both have finished this season. BUT did it 7 times, and MAS twice.
Out of a total opoints for all the races (19*101) VET has 392 out of 1919, which itself is 20.4%.
If the constructors points for teams below top 3 is taken, they outscore VET by only 5 points.
RedBull had only 2 mechanical DNF’s over the entire season.
Also SEB is the only driver to not pit for a front wing change during a race in the entire season *unless someone comes up with some other name*